Dream Drabbles
by Lemon Icee
Summary: A series of drabbles, mostly involving Eames, Arthur and Ariadne, the themes of which are taken from that 100 theme list. No order though. Rated for language.
1. Green

**Author's Note: **Just some Inception drabbles using the 100 themes list (In no particular order I might add). Mostly involving Eames, Arthur and Ariadne, the three best characters in my opinion C: Disclaimer = I'm not Chris Nolan, which also means some of these may not make sense :/

**Green**

The world around Arthur sprung up from the ground in dramatic spurts of twisting tree trunks and tropical flowers. He marveled at his ability to create. He had always longed for a place like this: a deep, dark and secluded place to call his own. He had always treasured his alone time. But he was not alone. Standing behind him, watching his handiwork appraisingly were two men, both about ten years his senior. The shorter one was Dominic Cobb, the so-called leader of the ragtag operation, and the one who had whisked Arthur away from his small school in Connecticut to the quickly growing jungle they were standing in now. To Cobb's right was Eames, whom Arthur had only met about ten minutes previously. Arthur was trying to ignore the men as he built his world; he was trying to ignore just about everything. He didn't see that Eames was smirking a little, and Cobb looked mildly concerned.

"We ought to tell him to stop changing things," Cobb said without much conviction. "They're starting to circle." He gestured to the dozens of eyes glowing through the thick underbrush. Flashes of spotted fur could be seen occasionally as the leopards of Eames' subconscious zoned in on the invader.

"Best way to learn is the hard way," Eames said cheerily. "I do rather like what he's done with the place though. I always imagined my inner self being rather catlike," He made a clawing motion with his hand as one of his projections let out a menacing growl.

Arthur still hadn't noticed the immediate danger, as he was concentrating very hard on one particular tree, the biggest one in the forest. He was making it oddly symmetrical and orderly, although he couldn't figure out why it looked strange. Squinting at it as it rose into the disappearing sky, he didn't even notice as a large spotted beast lunged at him from behind.

Arthur woke up with a start, his heart racing. The last thing he remembered was a severe pain, and he ran his hands over his shoulders to make sure there weren't really huge gashes on them. In the chaise beside him, Eames was laughing uproariously. Arthur glared at him. He could already tell he wasn't going to like the Brit.

"What the hell was that?" He asked sulkily, ripping the wires from his wrist.

"That, my friend," Eames said with a grin, "Was a rookie mistake."


	2. Beginnings

**Author's Note: **Remember that semi-buried line of Eames' when they think they've failed the mission? Something about seeing his family again. I don't know if he was just joking, but I like to think he is capable of some real relationships.

**Beginnings. **

It took nearly a minute of pounding on the heavy metal door to wake Eames, who had fallen asleep on his dining room table. Papers were scattered in front of him, half of them drool-stained now. He raised his shaggy, unkempt head from its horizontal position, glaring with heavy lids at the source of the ruckus.

"Who's tha'?" he called out drunkenly, though it had been several hours since he'd finished off that bottle of whiskey.

"Candygram," came the muffled, and very familiar voice. Cursing, aching all over, Eames raised himself up and staggered to the door, flinging it open to reveal the trim and tidy, and overly smug face of Arthur _.

"All I see is a twat. Where's my candy?" He grumbled, as Arthur invited himself in.

"You've gained weight," Arthur said, casting an appraising glance at his former partner. "No candy today. But I have something else for you,"

Eames shut the door grumpily, shuffling back to his seat at the table.

"Where's the family?" Arthur asked casually, choosing to remain standing.

Eames ran a hand through his matted hair, looking supremely pathetic.

"Lisa took the kids," he murmured. "Work's been hard to come by, you know,"

"And you spent your share of the Saito job on gambling? Or booze? Or maybe both?" Arthur guessed in a maddeningly aloof tone.

"Fuck you, kid," Eames felt real, humorless anger boiling inside of him. "Get the fuck out of my house if this's all you got to say."

"It's not," the point man withdrew some papers from his briefcase, laying them in front of Eames on the table. "I've got a job here actually, and I was wondering if you'd want to help out."

Eames blinked, scanning the paper for information, taking an embarrassingly long time to read it.

"Without Cobb?" He said distractedly, and Arthur nodded.

"Cobb's out of the game, you know that. We're starting something new."

"We? Who else?" Eames looked up sharply.

"Ariadne of course, says so right in the paper."

"Right," Eames looked back at the document, cursing his functioning illiteracy. "Something new…"

"Are you in?"

Eames looked up at the perfectly composed thief, whose hand was extended expectantly. Reluctantly, he shook it.

"Good," Arthur said. "First things first: take a shower."  
"Gladly," Eames stood up, stretching. "And there's actually a second bathroom in here, if you want to go remove that stick up your ass," flashing the younger man a grin, Eames went to put himself back together.


	3. Family

**Author's Note: **This one is too long and I don't like it that much :/ I was just trying to explore Eames' character a little more. Sorry for the DRAMA I'll try to make a funny one next C: But I will never stop writing about how Eames can't read, aha ha ha.

**Family**

The Parisian workshop was bathed in a yellow half-light, feeling so oddly dream-like that Eames had to finger his poker chip totem in his pocket continuously to assure himself of reality. Most of the team had gone home already, although he wasn't entirely sure who was still skulking around. For his part, he was poring over information on Fischer's godfather, gathering clues and piecing together bits of personality like a detective. It was a very fine art, one which was underappreciated by the likes of the Point Man, who had pointed out snidely earlier that Eames' job would be a lot easier if he were not illiterate.

Eames ran a hand through his mussed up hair, staring at a newspaper clipping detailing a Fischer corporation buyout back in 2003. He was a slow reader, yes, but not _illiterate_. Some big words he skimmed over, but he got the gist of most things.

There was a light knocking which broke his concentration on the article, which had frankly been waning since he had tried to figure out what "conglomeration" meant. He turned to see Ariadne standing at the other end of the table, holding a cup of something steaming.

"Want some coffee?" She asked, peering at his work indiscreetly.

"Love some, thanks dear." He took the cup from her gratefully, collapsing down into the nearby chair and blowing on it. "And why are you still hanging around?"

The Architect shrugged, her arms folded across her chest. "It's kind of hard to leave this place, honestly. I feel like I'm always dreaming here, and going back to the real world…" he saw her finger her totem absent-mindedly. "It feels really weird. I feel like two separate people."

He let out a bark of harsh laughter, to which she looked up at him questioningly.

"Trust me darling, in my line of work that feeling sounds like paradise."

"How does it work?" She asked. "Becoming someone else in a dream? Why does it take a "forger" to do it? Couldn't I feasibly do the same thing?"

"What-ibly?" He asked. He was unabashedly ignorant of most high school level vocabulary.

"Possibly," she clarified.

"No, not possibly," he said with a smirk. "It takes a lot more than just imagining what someone looks like to be a good forger. It takes a very special kind of commitment; it takes a near total abandonment of your own persona. It's the ability to lose yourself in the person you're pretending to be. And you can already guess the danger there," he said coolly, sipping his coffee with unusual grace.

"You…can forget you're not just a projection? That you don't just exist in the dream?" Ariadne guessed.

"You are a clever girl," Eames responded with his usual patronizing tone. "If you're trying to trick the subconscious, you have to make sure you have forged elements of a person which appeal to the subconscious, and that is much more than appearances. That's gait, cadence, vocabulary, even the certain tensions that people have developed over years of interacting with only half-truths."

Ariadne looked at the Forger with an odd expression.

"Do you ever forget who you are?" she asked quietly.

Eames thought about how to answer her for a moment.

"I am a very good forger," he said with a smile that was laced with sadness. "And this is because I'm utterly forgettable to start with,"

Ariadne opened her mouth to respond, but he did not let her.

"So yes," he said. "I forget who I am quite frequently. But just like a totem, there are certain things in life that remind me,"

"What are those?" She had never seen Eames acting so seriously, although his smug smirk never left his face.

"Oh well, gambling debts for starters, and the various death threats that come with those," he said nonchalantly. "But this as well," and he pulled his wallet from his pocket, from which he extracted a worn-looking photograph and handed it to her.

The photo was of two little girls, maybe 2 and 4 years old, laughing with princess hats on.

"You…have kids?" She asked, completely shocked.

"Why so surprised? I don't seem like the daddy type?" He asked playfully, taking the picture back and glancing at it briefly before tucking it away again.

"Arthur said you live in Mombasa?"

"They live with their mum, in Glasgow," he said, answering the unasked question. "They think I'm an airline pilot. Bless the gullibility of children," he smiled wanly.

There was a long silence in which Eames drained the last of his coffee.

"I hope you haven't been talking to Arthur too much, love," he murmured as he placed the empty mug on the table, staining his papers. "He'll try to tell you otherwise, but this game is all about emotion. There's very little planning can be done in the face of a landscape that is shaped entirely by base feeling."

Ariadne nodded and other silence filled the room.

"You'd be a good forger, actually dear," Eames said, heaving himself up from the chair and picking up his coat.

"Is…that a compliment?" She asked, wondering if she was entirely forgettable.

Instead of answering, he went on. "I notice you've gotten very invested in Cobb and his silly post-marital troubles. You ask a lot of questions, and yet almost none are asked of you, because as I'm sure you realize you've stumbled into a little troupe of very aloof and grouchy men. We don't really know anything about you, and yet here I am telling you about my family." He smiled, making his way to the door.

"That is what a good forger does, and I for one cannot believe I fell for it." He gave her a little nod and slipped out the door.

Ariadne stared at the space that had only seconds ago been occupied by Eames. She was a little confused about how the conversation had ended. Suddenly panicked, she fingered the glossy bishop in her pocket, took it out and tipped it on the table. She wondered how long after the inception it would take her to have a firm grasp on her own existence. She thought of the photo, the children happily playing. Perhaps she needed a better totem.


End file.
